But times have changed since the times of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife living in the Ritz on an author’s salary. Millions of books are added to the marketplace each year. But I think we can all agree that it’s good to dream about what can happen.
And, even with the publishing industry changes, let me assure you that there are plenty of authors making big dollars in royalties each month.
How do you make money as an author?
But selling books is HARD WORK. I don’t want to be a Negative Nelly – but I look at stats every day. And I can tell you this: social media can help you grow your audience, but if you’re relying on your social media to get it done for you in terms of book sales, it’s a road that takes time and lots of energy to build. Social media is one tool in the toolbox, but it can’t be your only tool.
That’s where ads come in. (Register now for our upcoming Ads for Authors workshop – it’s on Monday July 12th!)
I wrote my first book in 2013. I know I often say that earning money as an indie author is a marathon not a sprint, but most authors would be forgiven for not expecting a book published nearly 10 years ago to still be bringing in much money every month.
But a few years ago, after learning more about Amazon ads, I decided to make this long-languishing, but deeply personal book my guinea pig for testing my new knowledge. I tweaked and adjusted, and over time I built a pretty decent Amazon ad. It was so good that I’ve kept running it for 4 years. I’ve not promoted or marketed this book in any other way since this ad started running.
And because this book is getting in front of not just readers but the RIGHT readers in the place where they’re already ready to make a purchase (Amazon), it’s selling. Consistently.
Every month, I get a check from Amazon for about $250 for this book alone. WITH NO OTHER MARKETING. I’m not blogging, Instagramming, podcasting, or promoting this book in any other way except Amazon ads.
And even when I deduct my ad expenses, I’m clearing about $150 a month from one book that I don’t do a single other thing to promote. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s $1800 a year that I didn’t have to work for.
(And, more importantly, this book about coping with child and infant loss is reaching the grieving families who need it. Making a lot of money was never my goal, to be clear, but I do want it to show up in the search results when someone needs it.)
No, it won’t pay my mortgage or for braces. But it goes towards family vacations and dinners out and creating memorable times together. Having that income helps me create something special in my life that wouldn’t be possible without it.
Ads for Authors: A Live Workshop
If you are ready to do the same for your book – whether it’s a book you’re still writing, or a book you launched a while ago – join me and bestselling indie author Kirsten Oliphant for my brand new premium workshop on Ads for Authors on July 12 at 12:30 pm EDT. (Click here to register.)
We’ll spend 90 minutes talking about…
How to run ads on Facebook and Amazon
Whether ads on either platform are right for your book (or not)
The timing and strategy for running effective ads that get results
I’ll tell you up front that Kirsten is not from a marketing company – she’s an indie author who is literally supporting her family with 5 figures in Amazon royalties every month. And that’s just her Amazon revenue.
And she did it by building smart Amazon and Facebook ads.
Kirsten has grown her career by writing great books and pairing them with great ads. If you’re ready to do the same, I recommend you join us. (The workshop will be recorded to make sure it’s accessible to everyone who’s ready to take this step!)
As a special bonus, everyone who registers will get a recording of the fantastic webinar Kirsten did about writing to market. If you want to take your author earning to the next level, writing books that speak to what the audience is seeking is vital!
Do you ever feel like you’re a smidge behind the trends as a writer, and you pay for it in a big way? Like if you’d started a blog sooner, it would have done better? Now it seems like there are too many blogs out there, and not enough people reading them. Maybe by the time you noticed everyone starting a podcast, you felt it had become too saturated as well? Or you finally try TikTok, thinking it will be your big break…only to gain a whopping 9 followers after 3 months?
I’m not saying you should give up on those platforms, but I wanted to share something that might give you an edge that keeps you going on those days you feel so far behind everyone else.
You probably know several authors with thousands of email subscribers or even thousands of followers on social media. How many do you know who have thousands of subscribers to a text list? I don’t even know many with hundreds on their list. Maybe they have them and just aren’t sharing the numbers, or maybe they aren’t bothering because they don’t feel the need for a text list.
But as I’ve seen other businesses and even churches sending mass texts, I knew it was something I wanted to join. The problem was that I assumed it was expensive and a hassle. I’ve already got tons of stuff going for my blog, email list, and social media. Adding one more thing seemed overwhelming. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the area where I could stand out.
Still, I didn’t even know it was called text marketing and had no idea what words to even type in Google.
Then I signed up for a webinar with Tony Robbins and started receiving texts about it. When I opted out of the texts, it sent me a confirmation that included a link to the text marketing service used. I started my free account immediately and haven’t looked back!
Here's why this tool is so important for authors:
Enough businesses use it that the technology is familiar and well done but not yet saturated. You and your readers are probably on some mass text list, whether from a church or a business providing alerts of discounts. But they aren't so prevalent that they get lost in the chaos (as many emails do).
It's similar to emails but with a higher open rate. Marketers always mention that we need an email list in addition to social media because we don't have control over social. But email is our turf. Plus, people may take a sabbatical from social but not so much from email. The same is true for texts. And texts have an open rate of something like 98%! The highest open rate my weekly emails have gotten in the past 3 months is 37% whereas something around 20% is average for email open rates. So maybe you gain only 23 subscribers in your first couple of months, but you’d have about the same amount of people opening that text as you would have opening an email sent to 100 email subscribers. As with email, you can create different segments for different groups of text subscribers. Much of the other lingo and capabilities are similar. They can work well together. Maybe someone unsubscribes from your email list but continues receiving texts.
It doesn't have to be another overwhelming task to add to your to-do list. Because texts are so short, they are much faster to create. In fact, I usually schedule 4 or 5 at once which takes 45 minutes tops, whereas I only get 1 or 2 emails typed up per week and can take about an hour each. My texts are a way to connect with my readers regularly without putting in tons of time, and they don’t have to put in tons of time to read it. Learning how to use this tool before other authors will establish you as an authority they turn to once they realize the benefits. You will have answers to their questions and be able to help them because you have the data and experience to do so. You have people you’ve learned from about how to start and grow an email list or social media platform. You will be that voice for others if you learn early on how to use text marketing well.
You can easily promote them in a paperback or at a speaking event. While it's easy to link to an email list in an ebook, people may not be as likely to type in your web address. Plus, they might get distracted as they do. But with a text list, you can type “Text CLUTTER to 31996” or whatever Textword you choose that's available (I just used mine as an example), and your readers can simply text that word to be subscribed to receive texts from you. I think that piques curiosity as well because it's something not many authors are doing yet. It’s also great for speaking events because maybe they don’t have time to wait in line to submit their email address to you, but they will send a quick text. Texts are a great way to build trust and be able to conveniently tell your readers about future books.
People don’t often have multiple cell phone numbers. Yes, they may get a new number, but people often tell me they have multiple email addresses and use one of them to sign up for stuff so that it isn’t going into their primary email. People don’t do that with their phones. You’re usually getting their one and only number that they check nearly every day even if they have a separate work phone.
Now you know why you should give this a try, but I’m also going to show you how to set it up well.
Pay attention to text marketing that you love and that you don’t enjoy. I do this with email, too. I’ve opted out of a few text lists because it felt like spam. Buy these, join that, remember this. They didn’t talk to me like a friend. I was just a way for them to get their message to one more person. Then I signed up for Heather Parady’s texts. She sent me a short, encouraging message each Monday. There wasn’t a link in every text. So when I started my texts, I knew I wanted to send a quote about simplifying your life each week. People love being inspired. And they love getting texts that don’t require anything of them!
Connect with readers regularly. Don’t just send a text when your book is released. Provide value week after week. Give them a reason to sign up. I like how detailed this fiction author is about text marketing, but she mentions that she already had 100,000 subscribers. So it doesn’t seem like she really needed the text marketing. She talks about how expensive her texting service was and how hard it was to get subscribers until she made a good offer. I’ll address that below since I use a different provider and offer, but she only sent 4 texts that year. I send 4 a month. I used to think less was more for my email list, esp since my audience doesn’t like clutter. I found that it actually works far better when I send one email a week that they look forward to and therefore isn’t clutter. It makes them feel like they know me, so they don’t mind when I ask for a favor every once in a while. That’s why I based my texts on the same system.
Make them want to subscribe. If you don’t think your texts are awesome, you won’t be as excited about promoting them. But when you’re providing value and building something amazing, you’re motivated to continue sharing it and encouraging others to join. I give away the audio version of my book, Packrat to Clutter-Free. It’s relevant to the topic of the texts, and it’s something they can’t even buy at this time. When you send a good text, you can use that content to show others how awesome it is to receive your texts. I promote my texts every week at the bottom of my email by sharing the quote I sent in my text that week. This repurposes my content and allows those outside the US to see the quotes since they can’t sign up for the texts. I also promote my Tuesday Texts on Instagram once a week. I don’t get tons of new subscribers but a couple here and there really adds up when you know they are virtually guaranteed to actually read your message.
Make it easy to subscribe. Online, I share this link rather than just saying “Text Writing to 31996” because it’s easier to click the link than memorize what number to text it to if they’re on their phone. If they’re on a computer, their phone might be in the other room. Plus, it’s pretty, and it gives me their name, too. At conferences, attendees may have their phone off. So it’s a good idea to have your Textword and number on a bookmark or sticker they can take with them.
This is the easy, reliable, affordable system I use. Once I found them, I searched other text marketing providers to compare. It started making me nervous when I saw so many big name companies working with them. I thought it would be too expensive. While the 50 free texts don’t get you very far because you could only send one text to 50 people or two texts to 25 people, the $29 plan gives you 500 texts a month, which rollover. They have simple video tutorials like this one to help you set up a page for people to subscribe. They always respond to my emails when I have a question about how to do something.
If you’re just starting out and don’t have a budget to work with, keep it in mind until you have an income you can draw from to make the payments.
But if this is something you see the value of investing in, definitely check it out here and try the free version to see if you like it. You can use this code, STR1168, like I did for a discount off the first month of a paid plan.
It may be a slow start, but I still gain 1-3 new subscribers each time I share my text list with people. That may not sound like a lot, but I count each phone number as 4 people on my email list since so many of them don’t actually read my emails. Starting small helps you get the hang of it and see if it’s something you want to continue investing in. I’ve found that my text subscribers really enjoy it, so it’s worth it to me.
I hope you find that learning this fairly new technology early is something you thank yourself for later!
